Bombcast from the Past: Arrow Pointing Down Podcast 2-24-2008

Link to podcast.

Date Posted: 2-24-2008

Hosts: Ryan and Jeff

Guest: Alex

Well here we are folks, the podcast has made it to it's second week, even though Jeff was a little skeptical last episode. We also get the Bombcast debut of Alex, who we all know will be a staple for years on the show. The guys are fresh off a trip to GDC, and are recording this episode in Jeff's living room, which I'm pretty excited about because the audio is way better. But Ryan does give some insight into the depth of a 7-Eleven Slurpee-chino, a coffee flavored Slurpee. And Jeff give a revolutionary review of a Snicker's Nut'n Butter Crunch bar, deeming it hard and says it is the "World War 2 first person shooter of candy bars." They move on to discuss last weeks Drink of the Week, Gatorade Tiger, and Jeff's struggle to actually locate them. Alex pitches an idea of going after a Gatorade sponsorship, but Jeff shoots the idea down because no price can be put on his love for Gatorade.

On to the discussion of GDC 2008, or so I thought, Ryan talks about the wonderful tote bag he received when registering for his press badge. Which brings us to our Drink of the Week, 6-Hour Energy Mini Thin Rush, Ryan describes the smell as fruit punch Kool-Aide, the taste is said to be the same. He proceeds to chug the rest, and sound to have almost choked, then changes his taste review to "a bunch of ground up pills." Alex warns him that for the next few hours he will become manic at one point and then feel a slow fall as opposed to a crash.

Now onto the real GDC 2008 discussion, Jeff is happy with the events they attended. He goes on to describe all the parties that were going on that week, Ryan chimes in about how weird it is to be walking down the street and passing Gabe Newell and his posse or having small talk with Will Wright. From what Alex hears, the craziest party was the White Wolf party, which none of them attended. Ryan missed an entire day to the show, thanks to a hang over and missed what Alex felt was the best part of the entire show, the Portal seminar. The boys say it's a little weird to cover a show that doesn't exactly focus on games themselves, but more on the actual production and creation side of games.

On the topic of Boom Blox, they talk about some sort of head tracking that would be integrated into the game, which never actually surfaced in the final product. Gears of War 2 was announced with a release date of holiday 2008, to none of their surprise. They spend less time on this then I would have thought, I assume it's because nothing of the game was shown at this time. XNA games are brought up, Microsoft will be letting these games go on sale at some point. Ryan talks about the one XNA game he has played, The Dishwasher, and says its a very stylist game , and a good deal of fun. Ryan compares it to No More Heros, and Jeff says it's more like a Devil May Cry. Jeff played a little of Street Fighter 4, and was excited about the fireballs. They all make fun of Smash Bros. fanboys, which was pretty comical. Jeff briefly considers a lawsuit against McDonald's for stealing his intellectual property, but he will settle if they give him the ability to get a McRib when ever he wants.

Ryan finally got his hands on a copy of No More Heros, and he says it's completely out of it's mind but still playable. They praise the silly things about the game like the main characters name, Travis Touchdown, the games use of coconuts, and pizza suplexes. Jeff points out how the game looks like it is supposed to look bad, and the open world is useless. Ryan suggests it if you want absolute M rated madness on the Wii, and Jeff endorses it as well. The next game is Echochrome, Jeff thinks a pretty neat game. Jeff played some Bionic Commando at GDC and the group talks about the merits of a white guy with dredlocks. Ryan is playing Jumper, he kind of wants to like it, but its ugly and clunky. Jeff and Ryan both want to see the movie, and Jeff reveals that at one point Eminem was up for the lead role in the movie, that would probably have made for a much better viewing experience. Ryan suggests that you pass on the game unless you want some easy achievement points. Alex also says to skip the Crew, it's unoriginal and repetitive, and says the entire plot of the game is stupid. Jeff agrees and wishes it had some sort of point system for the stylistic killing, like kudos from Project Gotham.

New releases this week are Patapon, Lost: Via Domus (Alex expresses his love for the show, Ryan shows his frustration,) Puzzle Guzzle. Jeff has been playing some Professor Layton, but has trouble with some of the puzzles, so he just uses a faq. N+ is out, and although Ryan enjoys it, he fells for $10 he deserves more megs. Triggerhart Exelica comes out as well, and Jeff looks forward to playing it twice and then never again. In the near future Army of Two is coming out, everyone has hear that it's a train wreck so they all look forward to playing it. And they are all excited about Bully: Scholarship Edition, which according to Ryan has an "orgazmic rape simulator."

Here is the first questions section on the podcast, the general consensus is that the Dual Shock is the best controller available. Alex hates the D-Pad on the Xbox 360 controller, a feature Microsoft would fix later down the road. A question is brought up about the next Call of Duty game going back to World War 2 (what would be come CoD: World at War) and how they would feel about the franchise going to future settings. On the subject of a WW2 themed CoD game, they litterally say "Snooze." Jeff even says " I never want to play another World War 2 FPS again." They are also not really keen to the idea of a future setting for the CoD franchise, Alex jokes that the setting would be space (somthing we would see in 2016's CoD: Infinite Warfare.) I also find this amusing in hindsight in regards to Jeff's professed love for CoD: Advanced Warfare. Jeff talks about mayonnaise on pizza, which is fucking disgusting.

And that bring the second episode to a close. Nothing super revolutionary until they got to the questions sections and Alex brought out his crystal ball to predict 2016 Call of Duty. Join me next time for Arrow Pointing Down Podcast: 3-4-2008.

Games Mentioned this Week:

* According to vgchartz.com, complied all units sold accross all platforms.

Aww, brings back memories: energy drink infused memories.